


Engraved on Our Hearts

by great_whatsit



Category: The Talk of the Town (1942)
Genre: Bisexuality, F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Canon, legal research of dubious accuracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27782362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/great_whatsit/pseuds/great_whatsit
Summary: Among a great many other things, Michael felt he was developing a new perspective on voyeurism.
Relationships: Leopold Dilg/Michael Lightcap/Nora Shelley
Comments: 15
Kudos: 12
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Engraved on Our Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luzula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/gifts).



To say that Michael felt good after his first day on the Supreme Court would be an understatement of signifcant proportions. He was proud of his position, naturally, and it was immensely gratifying to have his work and knowledge recognized in such a prominent way. He arrived home on what, conservatively, was cloud seven or eight, and was making his way contentedly up the stairs toward his apartment when his landlady called out.

“Oh, Mr. Lightcap? Pardon me — Justice Lightcap!”

Michael shook himself out of his warm reverie and paused, looking back at her. “Yes, Mrs. Adams? What is it? I’m very — "

“Your boarder has arrived, sir. I showed him in, and pointed out the spare room.” She smiled blandly. “I hope you don’t mind!”

“My … boarder?” Michael was confident that he had contracted with no one to rent his spare room, but he wasn't going to let Mrs. Adams know that. As such, he gave silent thanks for the talent he had developed in his years on the bench for looking serious and engaged, even as his brain scrambled to catch up with events. “Oh, _boarder_. Yes, yes, of course. Thank you, Mrs. Adams. That will be all.”

It was then that Michael caught an unmistakable, sour aroma drifting down from his apartment. The last words to his landlady were shouted over his shoulder as he vaulted the stairs, two at a time, realizing only too late that such behavior was beneath a man of his station. In that very moment, however, he couldn't bring himself to care.

It took conscious effort for Michael to slow his legs to a casual, walking pace after he opened his unlocked door, and to steer himself toward the closet rather than rushing into the kitchen to see his visitor. _Boarder_. His boarder. He took his time hanging up his coat and briefly regretted having left his robes in chambers, if only because of how striking a figure he imaged he must cut in them.

A cheery voice boomed out of the kitchen. “Justice Lightcap! Welcome home!”

Michael's small dining table had been carefully set for two, complete with candles and real silver. He could hear Dilg — for it was most certainly Dilg — moving about the kitchen, and he even imagined he could feel Dilg's presence in the space, disrupting the very air itself in ways that had once been quite alarming indeed. More recently, though, he'd come to see Dilg's once disruptive presence as, well, something a bit more positive. But now, he admonished himself, was not the time to think about any of that. Instead, he moved cautiously to the kitchen, peering in from the safety of the doorway. Dilg was, of course, wearing an apron, neatly tied in back but far too short for his distractingly long frame. His sleeves were unbuttoned and rolled up, and he was, Michael noticed with an emotion he assured himself was indignation, wearing Michael's slippers.

Dilg glanced over his shoulder and positively beamed. “Sir! You’re just in time for a celebratory meal.” He moved smoothly around the kitchen as if he’d been there for years rather than hours, carefully transferring the borscht into a serving dish Michael hadn't know he had, and making a bread knife appear alongside the rye loaf occupying Michael's only cutting board. Dilg placed a ladle in the soup and nodded in the direction of the bread and butter. “Would you mind?”

Wordlessly, Michael fell into Dilg’s wake, following him and the smell of the borscht. It was strange, he thought, how Dilg could be a source of both such disorder and such comfort, all at the same time. And just when, he wondered, had the presence of Leopold Dilg become comforting? He placed the cutting board and butter on the table and settled into the chair opposite Dilg, waiting. Dilg nodded at him solicitously, reaching for his bowl. "May I serve the borscht, sir?"

+

Dinner had been a pleasure: delicious, friendly, and wonderfully relaxed. Dilg teased stories out of Michael, his attention — particularly his insistence on calling him “Justice Lightcap” and “sir”, and the sly grin that accompanied the titles — making Michael flush with something like pride. Nora had arrived just as they retired to the living room for drinks, and her presence lit up the entire apartment. She did that to every space she entered but, watching her, Michael thought she was particularly radiant around Dilg: more charming, more clever, more lovely. It hurt, a little, to see it, but a large part of him was simply overjoyed to see her so happy, so the pain was less than he would have expected.

“Oh, Mr. — pardon me, Justice — Lightcap!” Her eyes were wide and serious over her gin and tonic. “It was so wonderful to see you up on the bench today. You looked so wise and important and … wise!” She sighed, almost to herself, and sipped her drink. Was it his imagination, or did her eyes slide to Dilg then, just for the briefest moment?

For his part, Dilg wore an angelic expression as he toasted Michael for the third time in quick succession. “To Justice Lightcap, the Wise,” he pronounced, raising his glass. Michael nodded demurely and did the same, sloshing only a touch of his bourbon onto his hand. Carefully, he placed the glass on the side table and licked the liquor off of his hand. He accidentally caught Dilg’s eye as he did so, and, in an action that felt oddly risqué, Dilg raised his eyebrows and canted his head slight to the side, seeming to assess him.

They both jumped when Nora coughed demurely, then announced that she must be going, because “it just wouldn’t be seemly for a brand new Supreme Court Justice to have a mysterious woman spend the night in his apartment.” Michael flushed and sputtered; Nora laughed and kissed him on the cheek when he stood to bid her farewell, then fixed him with a serious look. “I really am awful proud of you, you know.” She kissed his other cheek and then turned to Dilg, who wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her full on the lips, long and hard and — goodness. Michael felt he shouldn’t be watching, but he couldn’t turn away. Nora’s hand was on the back of Dilg’s head, and his tongue was most definitely in her mouth. (Judging from the sound Nora made, its presence was in no way unwelcome.) Michael found himself disappointed when Dilg pulled away. Nora tugged at her top and wiped at her mouth in twin gestures toward decency, winked at Michael, and was gone.

Dilg whistled low as he walked to the bar. “She’s quite a girl, eh, Justice Lightcap?”

+

The three of them quickly settled into a rhythm. Michael went to work during the day or, when the Court was in recess, he did research, worked on his papers (he’d decided that they must be preserved and organized for posterity — all of them), or gave interviews to sincere young law students, eager to follow in his footsteps. Nora worked for the Navy doing something about which she was forbidden to share any details, but which thrilled and delighted her. For his part, Dilg worked with uncharacteristic subtlety with union leaders, helping them to make sure the Wagner Act was properly implemented, and holding the government accountable for the commitments it had made to labor. After completing their daily civic duty, Michael and Dilg would return home, where Dilg would make dinner for both of them (Michael cleaned up); Nora would typically join them for drinks afterward. They were a lively threesome, delighting in one another’s company, arguing about politics and, unexpectedly, getting into ferocious battles about who was the most lovely Hollywood star. (Michael saw no reason to drop his longtime devotion to Betty Grable, while Dilg’s eye had recently been caught by Gene Tierney. Nora, for her part, was so fiercely devoted to Veronica Lake that she and Dilg once nearly came to blows. Michael long remembered the electricity of that particular night.)

At the end of each evening, after his peck on the cheek, Michael would watch Nora and Dilg say farewell in truly spectacular fashion, a ritual which reliably left Michael just as breathless as it did its two participants. It all made him feel very strange, but Dilg never appeared put out by his presence when Nora left, nor did he seem to mind Michael’s flushed face or his shortness of breath. Among a great many other things, Michael felt he was developing a new perspective on voyeurism, and wondered how it might impact his opinion the next time such a thing came up in court.

+

One evening, Dilg closed the door after Nora left and leaned on it, his narrowed eyes on Michael. Michael felt as if he was being thoroughly examined by Dilg and idly thought he might like it, then wondered if the pleasurable feeling in his chest was merely his lingering reaction to the impressively enthusiastic farewell he’d just witnessed. He cleared his throat, meeting Dilg’s eyes and waiting.

“Michael, my dear friend,” he began. He moved away from the door and began tacking a course toward Michael, picking up glasses and ashtrays as he came. “You know you needn’t merely … watch us say goodnight.” Michael caught the glint in Dilg’s eye and wondered whether — oh. _OH_.

Dilg's grin grew, and his look shifted toward something that was somehow both disarming and predatory. Michael shivered. He’d seen that look on Dilg before, of course, but never directed at him. Well. Never directed at him so openly. There had been moments when he’d wondered, even before they got to DC, but Michael had always told himself what he thought he saw was nothing but foolish fantasy. In retrospect, he mused, perhaps it hadn't been so foolish after all.

Michael successfully repressed the urge to scramble to his to his feet and instead sat, waiting, as Dilg emptied the ashtrays, and took the glasses he’d collected to the kitchen. When he came back, he perched on the edge of the coffee table directly in front of Michael, his long legs nearly bracketing Michael’s own. Dilg lit a cigarette and took a slow drag.

“You do love her, don’t you?” He exhaled, then held his cigarette out to Michael.

Michael took it from him and put it to his mouth, grateful to have something to do with his hands, even as he tried mightily not to think about his lips where Dilg’s had been. “Well, of course I do, Dilg. Of course I do. But — “.

Dilg waved a dismissive hand. “But nothing! You love her, she loves you — so what’s the problem? Are you standing on propriety? Again?” He laughed with true warmth and shook his head. “Justice Lightcap, I thought you’d finally learned that there’s a difference between principle and practice — legal and otherwise!”

Michael was completely at sea. All he could think of to do in response was to hold the cigarette out to Dilg, who took it and tilted his head back, blowing perfect smoke rings toward the ceiling. Inevitably, his eyes returned to Michael: he knew he wasn’t going to be allowed to leave the room without offering some sort of response.

“Well?”, Dilg prodded. He straightened, pulling himself to a height that seemed impossible for a seated man as he awaited his answer, giving Michael the feeling of being loomed over.

“Principle and practice are indubitably different, my friend, of course they are.But, she. And you! I mustn’t — .”

“Oh, for — “. Dilg made an exasperated sound and put the cigarette down. Then he leaned forward, grasped Michael’s face between his hands, and brought their lips together, firmly and decisively.

Michael grunted in surprise and grabbed at Dilg’s arms for balance. His brain helpfully informed him that Dilg’s lips were soft, while his arms were impressively firm. Like those of the gardener he once pretended to be, Michael thought, just as Dilg pulled away.

Seen from this close, Dilg was staggeringly handsome. Michael had always forbidden himself the pleasure of really looking at Dilg, but now that he had started, he couldn’t imagine he would ever be able to stop. His lips were awfully plush for a man’s, and so very red. It was only with great effort that he dragged his focus away from Dilg’s mouth, up to meet his eyes. They were bright and pleased and a lovely, liquid brown. Michael was aware it was a cliche, and not one he’d ever allow himself to use out loud, but he felt a bit like he was drowning. Downing in a sea of Dilg. (Mentally, he furiously scratched out that line. What dreck!)

Now it was Dilg’s turn to clear his throat; Michael started, realizing that he still had a firm hold on Dilg’s biceps, and that Dilg’s enormous hands were still comfortably holding his head in place. Michael swallowed and made a firm choice to abandon propriety, just this once. “Would you very much mind, Dilg, doing that again?”

+

Dilg had assumed that the Landmark Evening of Making Out With Justice Lightcap (he called it that both in his head and out loud, as often as possible) would end all of Michael’s resistance for good. He was, however, very mistaken. Michael assured him that his talents for kissing were — Dilg remembered the quote exactly, and worked hard to fit it into conversations — “Both persuasive and profoundly impressive”, but he nevertheless refused to allow his feelings to make this important, long-term decision for him. Both Dilg and Nora loudly reminded him of his dramatic, feelings-inspired (and briefly armed) courtroom stand for Dilg himself, but Michael would not allow himself to be swayed. Ultimately, their quest for the rational justification Michael needed to proceed took them where Michael’s questions always did: to books.

The dining table in the apartment was soon covered with texts of various origin, from philosophical tomes by the ancients, to bound Supreme Court opinions from the 1880s; from erotica of dubious legality (Michael frowned at those, though Nora once caught him with one folded into the center of a volume of Supreme Court opinions, devouring it as he pretended to be reading caselaw.), to newspapers from far and wide. Each weekend was spent with the three of them at the table, marking pages, reading passages and, when necessary, shouting loudly about the definitions of things like “infidelity,” “indecency,” and “bigamy.”

They quickly ruled out marriage as an option — for any of them — as that immediately set them down the road to violating laws with the addition of another body to their bed. (Or, as Michael preferred to put it, “another heart to their family.”) The Supreme Court had spoken to that, and done so repeatedly. There was not, however, much federal caselaw on roommates and regular visitors, so Dilg dug into housing law in Washington, DC, while Nora used her few free evenings to search the archives of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals for relevant decisions. Michael, meanwhile, limited himself to reading and taking notes of his own, and answering occasional questions from Dilg and Nora.

After several weeks of research, Dilg and Nora sat Michael down after dinner and stood before him, notes in hand.

“If you will indulge us, Justice Lightcap, we wish to present to you: _A Case for Family,_ in which I, Leopold Dilg — “

“And I, Nora Shelley, will offer irrefutable proof that our family, already bound together by love and devotion” — at this point, they both smiled sweetly at Michael, while Dilg fluttered his eyelashes coquettishly —“should become one carnally, as well.” (Dilg and Nora graciously ignored the strangled sound that came from Michael.)

For the next thirty-five minutes, Nora and her partner in persuasion rolled through what Michael had to admit was an impressively professional presentation, complete with historical context, charts, and a very thorough list of citations.

“In conclusion,” Dilg pronounced, “we assure you that our proposed arrangement will stand up to any legal scrutiny. I am nothing more than your boarder, and Nora may, both by law and in accordance with the terms of the lease you signed, stay the night as long as she is unmarried. More importantly, we are both quite tired of watching you heroically deny yourself what you want, and would very much like to finally have our wicked ways with you.” Dilg glanced questioningly at Nora who nodded in firm agreement and turned toward Michael.

“Well, darling? Won’t you please say yes?”

Michael’s heart was attempting to beat its way out of his chest, but he’d never felt more sure of anything in all his life — even his decision to accept an appointment to the Supreme Court felt fraught next to this one. He stood and walked solemnly toward Nora, taking her hands in his. “Nora, my dear. I love you both very much. Yes.” He kissed her lips, gently, even as Dilg shouted and took hold of both of their arms, tugging them toward Michael’s bedroom.

“Come, come, loves. So much lost time to be made up! Justice Lightcap, will you please pay attention? _Michael!_ ” Michael closed his eyes, smiled against Nora’s mouth, and let himself be led.

+

For a while, it truly was the talk of the town. “Supreme Court Justice in Love Nest With Radicals?”, asked the _Times_. “Former schoolteacher Nora Shelley, rumored to be part of the Navy’s top-secret ladies intelligent team, has been seen leaving the townhouse of recently-seated Supreme Court Justice Michael Lightcap in the early morning hours, sometimes in the company of notorious former radical Leopold Dilg. When asked about it on Tuesday, Lightcap responded sternly. ‘My _dear_ sir! Haven’t we got more important things to worry about? There’s war on, don’t you know!’”

Michael was right: there was a war on. And, given that reality, it turned out that very few people could sustain concern about what kind of guests a Supreme Court Justice had in his home. They were far more interested in important things like what was happening at the front, the heroic women on factory floors, and (of course) Rita Hayworth. Mrs. Adams was permanently scandalized, but as long as Michael paid his rent on time, the worst she ever did was cast them dark, curious looks.

And so Nora, and Michael, and Dilg became a family in all of the ways they had ever dared imagine. They loved and challenged and enraged one another, and each was entirely incomplete without the other two. None of them had ever been so happy.

**Author's Note:**

> I know someone in the movie spoke the title phrase because I wrote it down as soon as I heard it. That said, though, boy do I not have any idea whose mouth it came out of, or at what point in the movie it did so.
> 
> Happy Yuletide, Luzula! Thank you for your prompt, and for the excuse to think a lot about this wonderful movie.


End file.
